Category Archives: Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Post navigation

Wyatt’s father has disappeared, leaving only a mysterious note (“One day you will understand). It’s a great hook and a fun beginning. The main character is a teenager from our world who’s somehow transported to this other world, and that’s where the mystery begins. That said, the rest of the book didn’t live up to premise. A lot of things are left unresolved, which is fine if it’s a planned series, but was still fairly frustrating considering where we started. Many of the characters (Wyatt in particular) are easy to relate to and well-developed, there was also a fair bit of action (our heroes getting attacked, etc.) but overall, I felt a little disappointed. Continue reading →

Cut to the Chase
Wyatt’s father has disappeared, leaving only a mysterious note (“One day you will understand). It’s a great hook and a fun beginning. The main character is a teenager from our world who’s somehow transported to this other world, and that’s where the mystery begins. That said, the rest of the book didn’t live up to premise. A lot of things are left unresolved, which is fine if it’s a planned series, but was still fairly frustrating considering where we started. Many of the characters (Wyatt in particular) are easy to relate to and well-developed, there was also a fair bit of action (our heroes getting attacked, etc.) but overall, I felt a little disappointed.

In Greater Detail
Wyatt a lonely thirteen-year-old boy who’s trapped in the middle of nowhere… in a foreign world. Thus, the narrator has the reader’s general expectations about what the world ought to look l ike.

He meets Marrock, who is a wolf (who talks and helps protect him). There’s an element of danger right away: there are storms that are dangerous, eventually trees that are also potentially malicious). Wyatt rides the wolf to safety and they eventually meet Lex, a winged beast who tells Wyatt about a quest he must complete in order to find the Fae Princess (there’s not a lot of explanation about why this is suddenly the quest, just characters, followed by a quest).

There’s also a background threat of war and plenty of solo adventures for Wyatt throughout the book (for example, Wyatt must go to the forest alone, where he then meeds Dryads, and eventually gets some powers).

There’s everything from a dragon a wizard, with a lot of small quests throughout.

This book was slightly disappointing even though there was quite a bit of action. I just felt like none of the larger questions were resolved, and it was a lot of somewhat standard going from one location to another, performing quests without anyone ever stopping to ask why. Perhaps I’m just grumpy or have read too much fantasy recently, but this one was, while entertaining, slightly disappointing after an interesting start.

Okay, there are slightly more differences than that, but if you started off thinking it was Asian heroine version of Ready Player One you wouldn’t be too far off the mark. The time period feels a little more “now” but otherwise it’s a girl saving the world by playing a video game.

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. Even today, machines that mimic human thinking surround us. As the intellectual feats of computing machines grow more and more astounding, will there be a day when their apparent intelligence approaches, or even surpasses, that of human beings? And what if these machines then become conscious, self-aware?

Get this latest title in the acclaimed Future Chronicles series of speculative fiction anthologies.

Thirteen authors confront the question of the Singularity: at and beyond that point of time when A.I. becomes more than simply a human construct. From first awareness to omniscience, these original short stories explore that territory where human intelligence comes face-to-face with what is either its greatest hope, or its greatest threat.

Below is an interview with Melissa McPahail.1. How important do you think cover art is to selling your books?

I think cover art is essential to book sales. A well-crafted cover will tell the reader in which genre the book is classified, represent in some way the story’s theme, and give an overall impression of the world. Fantasy book covers are vital to presenting a sense and feeling of the world. In many cases, the cover is the only visual representation a reader gets.

And of course, we all know that a book cover done well will catch a potential reader’s attention. It’s your best and sometimes only chance to make that memorable first impression.

Cut to the Chase:Heart of Veridon is a weird mix between a film-noir style detective thriller and very weird clockwork fantasy. The juxtaposition of these two dissimilar styles mostly works, but the book inherits flaws from both genres. On the plus side, the story moves quickly and is quite engaging, the supporting characters are unique, the protagonist is consistent, and the setting is distinct and interesting. There isn’t a moment that you feel fully immersed in the setting or feel like you really understand how it functions, but the glimpses you catch into the everyday life are quite different from what you typically see in fantasy. I would definitely recommend this book, but probably more to people who like action and an interesting setting than to people looking for intricate plots and interpersonal interactions.

Cut to the Chase:Blood Song is a generic, urban fantasy, kick-butt heroine, vampire hunter thriller. All the rote copied elements of ditzy urban fantasy with the possible exception of the excruciatingly banal love triangle are present here. The protagonist is very blatantly a wish fulfillment power fantasy, the writing gets very choppy in parts, and the story doesn’t really hold together completely when looked at with all the information. Despite all this, as urban fantasy goes this book is definitely a cut above most of the genre. It moves well, the plot isn’t at any point based on characters making excruciatingly bad decisions, and the setting is actually kind of engaging. This isn’t great literature; it isn’t even a departure from the formula for this genre of books, but if you want to read urban fantasy, then I would say that Blood Song will probably be something of a treat for you, as it is markedly better than most in the genre.

Cut to the Chase:The Spirit Thief is a fairly traditional fantasy romp emphasizing fun and excitement over depth and character building. This is the first in a series, but most of the characters come already fleshed out with at least allusions to fairly extensive backstories. I enjoyed this book; the setting is mostly just traditional medieval style fantasy, but the magic system and mythology were at least fairly distinctly setting specific. Maybe it is due to the fact that this book serves to begin a series, but I felt like the story could have used a bit more work. It feels a bit like the author has the characters up on a shelf like toys, takes them down to play with a bit, then carefully picks them up and puts them back to pretty much the in exact same place they were when the story started. I prefer a bit more character development lasting from book to book other than literally “Oh darn my favorite coat got ripped.” The villain just sort of pops up out of nowhere and doesn’t feel nearly as fleshed out as most of the other characters. I would still say this book does a great job as a fun romp and would recommend it for that, but I feel like there is quite a bit of untapped potential here which disappoints me a bit.

Cut to the Chase:Debris is an imaginative fantasy with a unique setting that has a lot of promise but proved to move too slowly and be too predictable for my tastes. This is the first in a series, so I would excuse the author for not bringing everything to a resolution, but I still found the conclusion rather unsatisfying. The setting is unique. I would be tempted to call it steampunk due to the heavy reliance on fantasy technologies replacing contemporary ones, the dark industrial feel of the cities, and extreme social class disparities, but there really aren’t many gears or cogs in sight, and the technology definitely stems from magical rather than mechanical roots. There is also a heavy reliance on setting-specific myth and legend, which I find a bit tiresome as a narrative device but which works all right here. The protagonist isn’t horrible, but after the introduction I found myself able to predict her entire story arc, which detracted from my overall enjoyment of the book. The supporting characters aren’t really more than set dressing to the extent that it is easy to confuse them with each other. Despite these faults, I would recommend this book for any fantasy fan looking for an interesting, distinct setting and who can forgive a somewhat predictable and uninteresting protagonist and story.

Cut to the Chase:Undone is an urban fantasy fish out of water story. I haven’t seen the two combined before, and I felt like there was a lot of potential there. The protagonist is fairly developed and interesting, and although they lack depth, the supporting cast isn’t entirely uninteresting. Unfortunately, problems plague this promising premise. The main issues are that the author tries to shoehorn in some sort of weird semi-romantic sub-plot that doesn’t really compliment the main story or have enough to it to really please anyone looking for romance, the setting is generic-secret-wizards-urban-fantasy (which quite frankly a lot of authors do a lot better), the antagonist sort of comes out of nowhere for no reason, and this is the first in a series, which leads the author to write probably the most frustrating conclusions I have encountered in the genre. There are quite a few urban fantasy titles that I would recommend before Undone, but if you have exhaustively explored the genre then you might find some justification in picking up a copy.